I&E 510: Social Innovation Practicum
Course Description:
In the Social Innovation Practicum, students engaged with social entrepreneurs and other practitioners to learn about and support the design, development, validation, assessment, and scaling up of innovative, sustainable approaches to addressing critical social and environmental problems in North Carolina and around the world. Working in multidisciplinary teams, students gathered and analyzed data, developed recommendations, formulated implementation plans, and provided other capacity-building support to clients that included domestic and international social entrepreneurs, social enterprises, funders, public sector innovators and policy makers, and corporate social impact managers. Projects came from across the innovation lifecycle and were in areas such as strategy, programing, marketing and communications, operations, finance, human capital, public private partnerships, etc. As a result of these projects, we aim to increase the effectiveness, sustainability, and scale of impact of the innovations selected.
The Social Innovation Practicum is intended for graduate and professional students and exceptional undergraduates interested in developing their skills to act as entrepreneurial leaders, innovators, consultants, policy makers, philanthropists, impact investors, and changemakers in a wide variety of career fields and across multiple sectors. The course may also appeal to students interested in incorporating strategies for social impact into their careers in business, law, education, health, public policy, environmental sustainability, or other fields.
In the Social Innovation Practicum, students engaged with social entrepreneurs and other practitioners to learn about and support the design, development, validation, assessment, and scaling up of innovative, sustainable approaches to addressing critical social and environmental problems in North Carolina and around the world. Working in multidisciplinary teams, students gathered and analyzed data, developed recommendations, formulated implementation plans, and provided other capacity-building support to clients that included domestic and international social entrepreneurs, social enterprises, funders, public sector innovators and policy makers, and corporate social impact managers. Projects came from across the innovation lifecycle and were in areas such as strategy, programing, marketing and communications, operations, finance, human capital, public private partnerships, etc. As a result of these projects, we aim to increase the effectiveness, sustainability, and scale of impact of the innovations selected.
The Social Innovation Practicum is intended for graduate and professional students and exceptional undergraduates interested in developing their skills to act as entrepreneurial leaders, innovators, consultants, policy makers, philanthropists, impact investors, and changemakers in a wide variety of career fields and across multiple sectors. The course may also appeal to students interested in incorporating strategies for social impact into their careers in business, law, education, health, public policy, environmental sustainability, or other fields.
Reflection:
The reason I registered to take Social Innovation Practicum was becuase I was looking for a course that would allow me to develop my consulting skills while incorporating strategies for social impact in the public policy and global health fields. Overall, the course was all that I hoped for and more! I was able to fulfill my goal of advancing my consulting and design thinking skills by working with the innovator partner. I had to learn how to rely on the experiences of others to inform my decisions for recommending a funding business model that could scale the innovator's product. After conducting a couple of interviews with key stakeholders, I was able to better understand which probing questions are the best at providing the most useful insights and information.
Key Learnings:
The reason I registered to take Social Innovation Practicum was becuase I was looking for a course that would allow me to develop my consulting skills while incorporating strategies for social impact in the public policy and global health fields. Overall, the course was all that I hoped for and more! I was able to fulfill my goal of advancing my consulting and design thinking skills by working with the innovator partner. I had to learn how to rely on the experiences of others to inform my decisions for recommending a funding business model that could scale the innovator's product. After conducting a couple of interviews with key stakeholders, I was able to better understand which probing questions are the best at providing the most useful insights and information.
Key Learnings:
- Learned how to effectively develop an Ecosystem Map. Creating an Ecosystem Map is useful becuase it helps a innovator visualize how their product will interact with the current systems and processes (i.e. political structures, culture and social fabric, economics and markets, etc.)
- Advanced my presentation and communication skills when working with the client. By using more diagrams and figures, I was able to make my slides look less wordy and more appealing to look at. I also was able to work on speaking more clearly in a way that my ideas were easier to understand.
- Learned about best practices when working in the consulting industry which will help me excel in my future career as a Strategy Analyst/Consultant.
Artifact:
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LVCT Health + Oky App:
The purpose of this project was to equip LVCT Health, a Kenyan non-governmental and not-for-profit organization that seeks to reduce HIV infections and increase equitable access to quality health services, with best practices in scaling a open-source innovation called Oky. The Oky app is an open source innovation that promotes menstrual health and hygiene (MHH), designed for girls and by girls.
My portion of the projected was focused on the following:
The purpose of this project was to equip LVCT Health, a Kenyan non-governmental and not-for-profit organization that seeks to reduce HIV infections and increase equitable access to quality health services, with best practices in scaling a open-source innovation called Oky. The Oky app is an open source innovation that promotes menstrual health and hygiene (MHH), designed for girls and by girls.
My portion of the projected was focused on the following:
- Identifying promising business models for Oky to scale sustainably and recommending implementation tactics for the model (Big Bettor Model)
- Identifying partnerships and alliances that will increase Oky’s funding sources and help localize digital solutions for menstrual health